Abstract This is a request for a Diversity Supplement for R01 grant #5R01 AR069951 to provide support for Mr. Ariel Epouhe, an underrepresented minority pre-doctoral trainee. The research plan for the trainee will build on studies of the parent grant that investigate how the skin communicates with cutaneous nerve fibers. The trainee is presently a first year doctoral level graduate student in the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh (CNUP) graduate program and has successfully completed the programmatic requirements of the first year. The premise of his studies build on recent findings that show epithelial cell activation alone can generate action potential firing in sensory afferents and the hypothesis that skin hypersensitivity results from functional changes in skin-epithelial-neuronal communication. Questions to be addressed by the trainee include how different subtypes of afferents are engaged by keratinocyte activation, if inflammatory stimuli evoke responses in keratinocytes directly and how immune stimuli in the skin affect cutaneous nerve subtypes. In conducting these studies the trainee will learn new cutting-edge technical approaches that include use of optogenetic mouse models, GCamP calcium imaging and skin-nerve-dorsal root ganglia ex vivo preparations. His training and development as an independent scientist will be supported by the rich academic and research environment and resources of the CNUP, the Pittsburgh Center for Pain Research and the University of Pittsburgh.